Does Animal Testing Help Human Medicine?

33 Facts to be Considered

(2) According to the former scientific executive of Huntingdon Life Sciences, animal tests and human results agree only "5%-25% of the time".

(3) 95% of drugs passed by animal tests are immediately discarded as useless or dangerous to humans.

(4) At least 50 drugs on the market cause cancer in laboratory animals. They are allowed because it is admitted the animal tests are not relevant.

(5) Procter & Gamble used an artificial musk despite it failing the animal tests, i.e., causing tumours in mice. They said the animal test results were "of little relevance for humans".

(6) When asked if they agreed that animal experiments can be misleading "because of anatomical and physiological differences between animals and humans", 88% of doctors agreed.

(7) Rats are only 37% effective in identifying what causes cancer to humans. Flipping a coin would be more accurate.

(8) Rodents are the animals almost always used in cancer research. They never get carcinomas, the human form of cancer, which affects membranes (e.g lung cancer). Their sarcomas affect bone and connecting tissue: the two cannot be compared.

(9) Up to 90% of animal test results are discarded as they are inapplicable to man.

(10) The results from animal experiments can be altered by factors such as diet and bedding. Bedding has been identified as giving cancer rates of over 90% and almost nil in the same strain of mice at different locations.

(11) Sex differences among laboratory animals can cause contradictory results. This does not correspond with humans.

(12) 9% of anaesthetised animals, intended to recover, die.

(13) An estimated 83% of substances are metabolised by rats in a different way to humans.

(14) Attempts to sue the manufacturers of the drug Surgam failed due to the testimony of medical experts that: "data from animals could not be extrapolated safely to patients".

(15) Lemon juice is a deadly poison, but arsenic, hemlock and botulin are safe according to animal tests.

(16) Genetically modified animals are not models for human illness. The mdx mouse is supposed to represent muscular dystrophy, but the muscles regenerate without treatment.

(17) 88% of stillbirths are caused by drugs which are passed as being safe in animal tests, according to a study in Germany.

(18) 61% of birth defects are caused by drugs passed safe in animal tests, according to the same study. Defect rates are 200 times post war levels.

(19) One in six patients in hospital are there because of a treatment they have taken.

(20) In America, 100,000 deaths a year are attributed to medical treatment. In one year 1.5 million people were hospitalised by medical treatment.

(21) A World Health Organisation study showed children were 14 times more likely to develop measles if they had been vaccinated.

(22) 40% of patients suffer side effects as a result of prescription treatment.

(23) Over 200,000 medicines have been released, most of which are now withdrawn. According to the World Health Organisation, only 240 are "essential".

(24) A German doctors' congress concluded that 6% of fatal illnesses and 25% of organic illness are caused by medicines. All have been animal tested.

(25) The lifesaving operation for ectopic pregnancies was delayed 40 years due to vivisection.

(26) According to the Royal Commission into vivisection (1912), "The discovery of anaesthetics owes nothing to experiments on animals". The great Dr Hadwen noted that "had animal experiments been relied upon... humanity would have been robbed of this great blessing of anaesthesia". The vivisector Halsey described the discovery of Fluroxene as "one of the most dramatic examples of misleading evidence from animal data".

(27) Aspirin fails animal tests, as does digitalis (a heart drug), cancer treatments, insulin (causes animal birth defects), penicillin and other safe medicines. They would have been banned if vivisection were heeded.

(28) In the court case when the manufacturers of Thalidomide were being tried, they were acquitted after numerous experts agreed that animal tests could not be relied on for human medicine.

(29) Blood transfusions were delayed 200 years by animal studies, corneal transplants were delayed 90 years.

(30) Despite many Nobel prizes being awarded to vivisectors, only 45% agree that animal experiments are crucial.

(31) At least 450 methods exist with which we can replace animal experiments.

(32) At least thirty-three animals die in laboratories each second worldwide; in the UK, one every four seconds.

(33) The Director of Research Defence Society, (which exists to defend vivisection) was asked if medical prgress could have been acheived without animal use. His written reply was "I am sure it could be".

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